Friday, January 21, 2011

They Came to Take Me Away

I returned to my loony bin today. The flight was uneventful as my flights go. I tossed three baskets of cookies, which has become more or less par for the course for me. One of my friends told me that I should take Dramamine or one of those other motion sickness medications. I could take one, I suppose, but it wouldn't help. I don't have motion sickness. It's some sort of anxiety reaction. I can't really explain why I now have anxiety associated with airplane flights, but I do. it's just one of those unexplained lingering side effects following my unfortunate incident of September 2010. Fortunately for me and for my fellow passengers, I can barf very quietly. I bury my face in one of the barf bags provided by the airline, then I quickly and quietly empty the comments of my stomach. Most of the time no one other than my dad has any idea what happened.

When my dad and I reached my facility, he carried my suitcase up to my floor, as he always does. I always try to talk him out of accompanying me up the elevator, but he always does anyway. Maybe he has to sign me in.

My dad rang the bell for admittance to my wing, and someone buzzed us into the wing. I told my dad I could carry my suitcase into my room. He said he would carry it because he needed to talk to me before he left. This made me nervous. I was afraid I would get a long, drawn out, and really mean lecture about how I had wasted all the time in my facility up to this point and how I only had about two months more to take care of my problems or be stuck with them forever. When my dad is angry, he is capable of speaking in a way that upsets people much older and bigger than I am. I told him I didn't want to talk to him right then. He insisted that he needed to talk to me. We were standing in the corridor arguing when one of the interns came up and asked if he could help. My dad told him he could get either the suitcase or the kid. He picked up the suitcase and my dad picked up me. While he was dragging me into my room, he said, "Honestly, Alexis, if I were going to beat you, wouldn't I have done it at home?"

So my dad dropped me on my bed and sat down on it next to me. He was actually out of breath. I'm really not all that heavy, and I didn't struggle that much. I hope he's just out of shape and not having heart probblems or something. He did sort of talk about what I thought he would, although he didn't say I had wasted the time in the hospital up to this point. He mostly just said that it would be really good for me to be as healthy as possible by the time I go to college, and so it was OK to have fun, but I also need to listen to the doctors. he also wanted to talk about college. We've had almost a month to talk about college, yet he never once brought it up at home. That's the way my dad is. Something is so unimportant that he doesn't talk about it once in four week. Then he suddenly thinks it's so incredublky important that henmaske a huge scene, dragging me into my hospital room in front of God and about a thousand witnesses to talk about it.

He really wanted to put in one more plug for the local university. In all honesty, I would be seriously receptive to the idea of enrolling there for a year or two. My problem with the place is mainly the place. I have more problems with anxiety near home than I do elsewhere because what happened was in my city of residence. I don't really need to be away from mom and dad, but I need to be away from that city. If I could pack my parents in my suitcase and take them with me to college, I probably would.
Such is not practical, however, as they have their own lives besides being my parents.

My dad came back this evening after work. There weren't really any planned activities, so people were in one of the lounges playing one or another of the lame games they like to play. I wasn't playing, but I went in there to be social. A girl who's fifteen came in and sat next to my dad. I'm not totally sure what her issues are -- she may be one of the drug addicts who's pretty farinto her recover-- but she has a serious issue with being overly fond of everyone's father, but she's even fonder of my dad than she is of the others. Most of the other dads are really scared of her, so my dad is one of the few who will give her the time of day. She sat ridiculously close to him. He just smiled at her and patted her on the head. He said if he ever found himslef alone in a room with her he'd cry "rape," but he's not all that worried about her in public. She kept hanging on him. He's far more patient than I would be.

At home I have a certain amount of leverage in dealing with girls who find my dad attractive. If they say any such thing in my presence, I refuse to be around them except in class when I have no choice. Here I have no such control. One girl with agoraphobia is convinced that my dad is a dead ringer for the character "Wilson" on "House." "Wilson" has brown eyes. my dad's eyes are blue. How can my dad be a dead ringer for someone with brown eyes when his eyes are blue? I think the girl has a lot more than agoraphobia working agsinst her, but I'm not a doctor and therefore not qualified to determine such things. the others are more sensitive to my feelings and don't say as much, but they always want to hang around whenever my dad is there.

Once a guy there whom I really like made a comment that my mom is totally hot. I was momentarily rendered speechless. Hefore I could recover my powers of speech, he said, "I'm just kidding!" He said he was going to say it about my dad just to see what my reaction would be, but the last thing he needed was for members of the staff to start questioning him about his sexuality in counseling sessions on the assumption that the fear of coming out might be adding to his anxisety and depression. I laughed with him, but to me it's really not a laughing matter. My parents, and particularly my dad, are NOT hot. They're my parents. They're not allowed to be both.

Matt, I actually understnad from where you're coming. When one of my age-level peers syas in all seriousness that they find my father hot, however, I find it about as sick as it would be if my dad said the same thing about that person.

For the record, my dad has never commented about the hotness of one of my age-level peers. He's too busy thnking up ways of making my life miserable to be bothered with the hotness or lack of hotness of teenaged girls.

Being bipolar was interesting. I channeled my inner moody person. I could go around crying all day every day if I allowed myself the indulgence, so I was quite adept at allowing my emotions to range from sever depression to manic laughterin a two-minute span. The director of the facility, who went to med school with my father, called him to come check me out because he thought I was getting a little too into it. Of course I stopped the second I saw my father, so he drove an hour for nothing. (He's working close to my area for a few days.)Formerly Bipolar Alexis

Musical theatre, perhaps? You have certainly shown considerable talent as a writer (this blog is a CV of how good your writing is) so with your musical abilities you could have a career in the theatre or films/TV. Sorry, of course, I mean movies! ;oD

My original plan, which I haven't found any reason yet to abandon, was to use an English major (combined composition and literature) as a pre-law course. If I ultimately decide against law school, an English major is a decent prerquisite for other things. At my probable university, one is not even allowed to declare a major until courses have been completed in several domains, anyway.

About Me

I'm nearly through my final year of college. I'm a biochemistry major with add-on majors in piano performance and violin performance. I have a minor in English.
Next year I'll move on to bigger though not necessarily better things.